Workplace Launches Facebook into Enterprise Collaboration

Workplace by Facebook, its enterprise tool for companies that allows workers to chat and collaborate with each other. Aside from the move into the enterprise collaboration space, Workplace is a subscription service, not an ad-suported service, representing a new business model for the product.

Available at no cost to educational or non-profit entities, Workplace is priced per user, based on the number of users at an organization, with fees ranging from $3 a month for entities with up to 1,000 active users, to $1 a month for entities with 10,001 users or more.

Workplace by Facebook started life as the internal system used by Facebook employees to share information relevant to their projects.

One of Workplace by Facebook’s core differentiators is the fact that it works well on smartphones and other mobile devices.

249 Billion Euros ($277 Billion) Needed to Deliver Fixed Network Gigabit in EU, Study Suggests

As you would guess, a study of gigabit Internet access costs, conducted by Analysys Mason for the European Community, suggests targeted enterprise connections cost the least of the fixed access alternatives, while ubiquitous fixed network gigabit networks cost most.

Ubiquitous 50-Mbps mobile access costs less than any fixed method, though not providing the same amount of bandwidth. That assessment could change over time.

Analysys Mason expects that by 2025, it will be possible for 1-Gbps peak speed to be provided from the macro cell network, with average speed around 180 Mbps.

The study authors note that other alternatives, including fixed wireless, cable TV technology and satellite will be capable of delivering gigabit speeds by 2025.

Still, Analysys Mason was asked to model only the “enterprise” deployment, mass market gigabit access (functionally limited to fiber to home or node) and mobile connectivity.

Fixed wireless, satellite and hybrid fiber coax were not modeled. Some of us might argue that might be reasonable for many of the European Community nations, if not necessarily the model that will develop on other regions.

source: European Commission

source: European Commission

Webscale Telcos?

Moving “up the stack” will be necessary and possible for the webscale global giants. Beyond some limited scenarios, smaller providers will lack the scale to create viable new application or services.

That implies rather significant consolidation. It might also mean significant service provider failures.

Few tier-one service providers recover cost of capital, studies have found. That is one way of suggesting that capital borrowed to provide telecom services actually does not make enough money to repay the loans.

That has clear strategy implications. Only a handful of firms will credibly have a shot at remaining among the 10 or so global providers. For as many as 100 other firms, strategy will consist in remaining the best-possible local partner.

Industry or firm strategy in a new or growing market is fundamentally different from strategy in a declining market. You can draw your own conclusions about which fundamental paradigm is most relevant.

But some conclusions are simple enough. In a young, growing industry, a firm or industry wants to grab new customers as fast as possible. In a declining industry, a firm or industry wants to limit the rate of decline.

Firms in young industries need to focus on growth within the new business. Firms in declining industries must harvest revenue while they search for new businesses to create.

Beyond those key frameworks, the range of potential strategies has increased, compared to options 100 years ago, when telecom was universally a regulated monopoly.

One clear outcome of a massive global wave of asset privatization, deregulation and the shift to Internet as the framework for applications is that service providers are becoming more different from each other, as firms are free to pursue a nearly unlimited number of paths.

So there now likely is no universal “best” strategy for any telco, tier-one, regional or local. Nor, it might appear, will most service providers emerge as major suppliers of new apps and services.

How Many Service Providers Can Escape "Dumb Pipe" Status?

One universally hears service provider executives arguing they want to avoid becoming “dumb pipe” connectivity providers. What is not so clear is how many service provider entities will actually be able to do so in a significant way.

For many--perhaps most--suppliers, being an efficient dumb pipe provider is possibly the only viable path forward. The problem is that most proposed new services and applications require scale.

Whether it is entertainment video, mobile banking and payments, connected car, connected health or other Internet of Things apps, viable suppliers must achieve scale. Almost by definition, most smaller providers will be unable to do so.

That will mean an industry dominated by 10 global service providers, some predict. Those handful of firms can become branded suppliers of applications. Smaller providers will struggle to reduce costs enough to remain viable primarily as suppliers of access services.

In other words, the advice to “move up the stack” will be viable for a relative handful of firms. Most service providers will focus primarily on access. In the Internet era, that means being suppliers of “dumb pipe” Internet access.

Moving “up the stack” will be necessary and possible for the webscale global giants. Beyond some limited scenarios, smaller providers will lack the scale to create viable new application or services.

Reliance Jio Gets 16 Million Mobile Accounts in a Month

Reliance Jio Infocomm has signed up 16 million customers (net new accounts) in its first month of full commercial operations since September 2016.

Reliance Jio has been offering free services for free to anyone signing up before the end of the year, including four gigabytes (4 GB) of free 4G data each day, as well as unlimited voice calls until December 31, 2016.

Customers will begin paying for data charges in 2017 but domestic voice calls will continue to be free.

Also, subscriber identification modules (SIMs) are being given away for free to customers of the 4G-only new service. So the issue for Jio is how many of its customers will stay with Jio once the free data period ends.

There already are more than one billion mobile subscribers in India, so Jio potentially has gotten something like 1.6 percent market share, assuming it attracted no “mobile for the first time” accounts, and only shifted demand from the other existing carriers.

Observers are watching to see how much market share Reliance Jio will take in the first year and first few years after that. Some believe Reliance Jio will get about 10 percent to 12 percent mobile subscriber share over three to four years.  

More Data Will be Created by Machines than People

It sometimes is hard to tell the difference between devices used by people (smartphones and other consumer devices) and those used by machines (Internet of Things). Health monitors and smart watches come to mind. They are worn by people, but “used” by servers.

Some refer to health monitor as “consume” IoT, in contrast to “industrial” IoT. The point is that there will be use cases that are hard to classify. “Smart clothing” might pose the same definitional issues.

Several years ago, for example, it would not have been unusual to find tablets classified in “connected devices” category that in some ways was the forerunner of today’s machine-to-machine or Internet of Things devices.

Perhaps few these days would count tablet connections in the IoT category. But there still are many consumer-focused appliances and machines that will be somewhat difficult to classify. Smart kitchen appliances might fall into that category.

Still, some would say connected PCs were the forerunners of today’s developing IoT markets. About the only widely-used device never really considered “IoT” are smartphones.

The point is that there is a difference between data or information created by people or machines.

source: bayforce

Perhaps nothing is clearer than the expected benefits from deploying IoT in any setting. For product and service providers, revenue upside is the expected driver of behavior, often in indirect ways such as creating better user and customer experiences.

source: Business Insider

AT&T to Launch LTE-M IoT Trial

source: Qualcomm

AT&T plans to pilot an LTE-M network in the San Francisco market starting in November 2016, followed by a full commercial launch in 2017.

LTE-M is a subset of the Long Term Evolution 4G network standard optimized for Internet of Things sensors requiring transmission speeds no greater than about 1 Mbps, as well as up-to-10-year battery life and ability to work underground.

source: Qualcomm

LTE-M technology is expected to connect a wide variety of IoT systems supporting smart utility meters, asset monitoring, vending machines, alarm systems, fleet, heavy equipment, mobile health and wearables.

Participants in the pilot include:

• Badger Meter – analyze how the LTE-M network, which is dedicated to supporting the IoT, may be used to enhance communications for smart water devices.
• CalAmp – explore how the LTE-M network can help companies more efficiently manage their connected vehicles and assets.
• Capstone Metering – demonstrate how LTE-M can improve Smart Cities sensor technologies. It will look to increase battery life and improve connectivity and sensor monitoring for underground smart water meters.
• PepsiCo – examine and test ways that sensors can improve the in-store experience with smart vending solutions for the thousands of PepsiCo products consumers love and enjoy.
• Samsung – evaluate an LTE-M-based solution to enhance performance for consumer solutions. This may include wearables or other consumer devices.